Kim Potter, a white officer, shot and killed 20-year-old Daunte Wright during an April 11 traffic stop in Brooklyn Center as she and other officers were trying to arrest him on an outstanding warrant for a weapons possession charge.
Jurors saw video of the shooting that was captured by police body cameras and dashcams. It showed Potter and an officer trainee, Anthony Luckey, pull over Wright for having expired license plate tags and an air freshener hanging from his rear-view mirror. Officer Luckey discovered there was a warrant for Wright’s arrest for not appearing in court on the weapons possession charge, and he, Potter and another officer commenced to taking Wright into custody. Wright obeyed Luckey’s order to get out of his car, but as Luckey tried to handcuff him, Wright pulled away and got back in his car. As Luckey held onto Wright, Potter said “I’ll tase ya.”
The video shows Potter holding her gun in her right hand and pointing it at Wright. Again, Potter said, “I’ll tase you,” and then two seconds later: “Taser, Taser, Taser.” One second later, she fired a single bullet into Wright’s chest.
Jurors on Thursday convicted Potter of two manslaughter charges in the killing of Daunte Wright.
Charges show as:
For first-degree manslaughter, the “reckless handling or use of a firearm so as to endanger the safety of another with such force and violence that death or great bodily harm to any person was reasonably foreseeable.”
The second-degree manslaughter charge she “caused an unreasonable risk and consciously took a chance of causing death or great bodily harm” to Wright while using or possessing a firearm.
Potter told jurors that she was “sorry it happened.” She said the traffic stop “just went chaotic” and that she shouted her warning about the Taser after she saw a look of fear on the face of Sgt. Mychal Johnson, who was leaning into the passenger-side door of Wright’s car. She also told jurors that she doesn’t remember what she said or everything that happened after the shooting, as much of her memory of those moments “is missing.”
